What Is the Best Way to Coach a Phone Call?

Coaching phone calls effectively in a contact centre can be challenging, especially when balancing performance expectations with advisor development.

One of our community members reached out to our Community of industry professionals for insights on this:

“In the contact centre, the focus of coaching is too often on the process of call monitoring and quality analysis (QA), instead of simply working together with the advisor to help them meet their full potential.

What is the best way to coach a phone call? We’d love to hear what works (or doesn’t work) for others in making coaching truly effective.”

We posed this question to our readers, and here are their responses:

3 Best Practices For Coaching Phone Calls

1. Ensure the Team Leader is Directly Involved

Conduct a Joint Review With Team Leader and Agent

Separating coaching from team leadership in development is ineffective – true coaching requires active, guided discussion, not isolated listening.

The team leader and advisor should review calls together, celebrating successes and identifying one or two key areas for improvement – the team leader’s involvement is essential to ensure a two-way discussion that adds value. Even in tough conversations, there’s always something positive – don’t lose sight of that.

Coaching should continue until both feel confident in the methods, with additional input from others for well-rounded feedback.

You could even have the agent taking the lead and reflect on what they would do differently, allowing you to focus on small, manageable changes rather than overwhelming adjustments.

In addition, having more people listen and provide progressive feedback can further enhance the coaching process and support continuous improvement.

QA acts as a safety net to provide insight and support development, but it should not replace the team leader’s role. A dedicated coaching role is not always a luxury contact centres have, so it is essential to bring the team leader and advisor together for effective coaching.

Contributed by: Martine, Tom & Kyle

Focus on Proactive Rather Than Reactive Coaching

Team leader involvement makes sure that coaching is proactive rather than reactive.

You should be using coaching as a way to see bad habits and action them before complaints come in, as not all customers will fill out surveys, etc. but will happily tell anyone who listens about the bad experience they received when contacting the company.

Contributed by: Ian

2. Encourage Advisors to Review Their Own Calls First

Allowing advisors to review their own calls helps them understand how their actions influence the outcome, making it easier to adjust and improve their approach.

However, self-evaluation should not replace structured coaching and monitoring but rather complement it.

When advisors review their calls alongside their team leader, it enhances their ability to recognize areas for growth while reducing the need for constant oversight.

A good approach is to let advisors listen to their calls before receiving feedback, giving them time to reflect on what went well and what could be improved.

This process becomes even more valuable when combined with customer feedback, helping advisors see the direct impact of their responses and refine their skills accordingly.

By integrating self-review with coaching, advisors gain greater self-awareness and develop a more proactive approach to improving their interactions.

Contributed by: Garry, David, Ian, Ethan & Morwamampuru

3. Use Voice of the Customer, Not Just QA Metrics

While Quality Assurance (QA) plays an important role in risk and compliance, it is not the best measure for improving customer experience. Instead, coaching should be guided primarily by the Voice of the Customer (VoC) to ensure advisors are aligned with real customer needs and expectations.

The most effective approach is for the coach and advisor to review calls together, using customer feedback to identify areas for improvement.

A team leader can then review as a final sense check. Key performance indicators for customer experience should be based on VoC insights, while QA should remain focused on legal and compliance standards.

Coaching should also be proactive, addressing bad habits before they lead to complaints. However, many coaching scorecards become outdated over time, failing to reflect what customers actually want.

Since VoC evolves in real time, relying solely on QA results can lead to assumptions about customer needs rather than capturing actual issues.

Contributed by: Diren

This article was made possible due to the great community of experts we have at Call Centre Helper, to get involved just join our LinkedIn Community and and if you aren’t already make sure you are following us on LinkedIn to see our latest content.

For more call centre coaching tips, read these articles next:

• Train New Agents in Just 30 Days
• Contact Centre Coaching Models: Which Is Best for Your Coaching Sessions?
• How to Coach Empathy in the Contact Centre – With Three Training Exercises

Author: Rachael Trickey
Reviewed by: Hannah Swankie